Without Better Material for Women, Michelle Rodriguez May Walk From the ‘Fast and Furious’ Franchise

The Fast and Furiousfranchise has earned some praise from socially-inclined critics for its utopian vision of a world where people of all races — white, black, Latino, Asian, Vin Diesel — can join hands and drive cars out of buildings in multicultural harmony. But these films have not done well by women to anything close to the same extent. In the recent Fate of the Furious, Dom’s baby mama gets murdered, hacker-babe Ramsey spends the run time getting eye-banged by Tyrese and Ludacris (neither of whom know her last name), and Cipher... well, Cipher was Cipher.

As the token woman in many of the franchise’s scenes, Michelle Rodriguez has just about had it. The star took to Instagram yesterday to shoot out a post promoting Fate of the Furious’ home-video release, but alongside the little plug, she expressed some frustrations over the franchise’s imbalanced gender politics as well. Take a look:

While there’s a big difference between complicated, mediated contract negotiations and an actor posting some stuff online, it does still seem like Rodriguez’s future with Hollywood’s fastest and furiousest film series my be in jeopardy. Rodriguez’s character Letty Ortiz was mostly left to brood over her turncoat husband in the most recent installment, and apparently the actress wants some more face time for her and her sisters-in-arms. It’s possible that this is a highly visible bluff, an attempt from Rodriguez to gas up the studio for a bigger payoff in the next film, but it could be a sincere request for respect just as easily.

Considering the kerfuffle now referred to as Candyassgate and now this, it’s turning into a proud tradition for Fast and Furious stars to spend the off-season between sequels cracking open some worm-cans. Is there still time for a Tyrese-Ludacris beef before 9 Fast 9 Furious?